The Search for History: Research on the Web

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8DcBF-qo4
This talk explores what data in the internet language codes can do for problems in human languages such as understanding, translation, information extraction, and inference. Peter Norvig came to Google from NASA in 2001 because he believed that that's where the data was, and he found that this search engine had a promising future. Despite the fact that technology has grown by leaps and bounds, Google remains one of the top corporations in the world. Google has gone places that were never dreamed of in the past. Norvig states that the way to make progress in Artificial Intelligence is to have more data, and the whole world is absolutely swimming in data. If you don't have good data, you won't make progress in terms of user-friendly tools, just with fancy algorithms and equations. The question at 46:00 got me very interested. The person asked if Google was going to offer any services for fighting spam.This was interesting to me because spam is still a very prevalent problem in the massive online universe. This discussion was fascinating in that it touched on a topic that I am not familiar with and therefore do not know much about. As a rather bookish person, the example involving data and probability relating back to Sherlock Holmes, while quite brief, was helpful to me because that helped the following mathematical and technological examples become more digestible and therefore more relevant.

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march06/cohen/03cohen.html
Databases such as Google seem  like common sense in today's technology-oriented word, but the Syllabus Finder tool that Daniel Cohen built followed something like this logic: a web page that contains many key words is extremely likely to be a result. The users of this specialized search engine enter key words in a search box, and the software then delivers the results. In short, if you simply ran some queries manually on the Google home page, you would not find as many syllabi as through the Syllabus Finder, nor would you see the additional information the specialized search engine provides. Articles such as this that discuss  the organization of digital materials are incredibly relevant to digital historians because search-enabled databases are central to research and compilation. This explanation is extraordinarily detailed and it is easy to get bogged down in the specifics, but at the same time, such an explanation is necessary because the internal workings are important to know for operation and use.

http://digitalhistoryhacks.blogspot.com/2006/10/searching-for-history.html
I was quite frankly baffled by this article because of all the technical language, but one thing that it does do really well is break down search terms and what those terms inform the search engine. I learned that search terms are key in developing databases that are geared towards historians and history enthusiasts. Understanding people is key to online development, which is a totally new thought. Technology is seen as something that is used by humans but does not have a human touch. However, this article demonstrates that people need to be understood in order to make any kind of use out of internet resources.

You Say You Want a Revolution? Twitter Educates the World

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/20/the_revolution_will_be_tweeted

An Examination of "The Revolution Will Be Tweeted" by Blake Hounshell for Foreign Policy Magazine

This article does not refer directly to classroom education, but I think that many of the points mentioned by the author in reference to the Arab Spring can be connected back to the classroom and how information is communicated. Internet culture is not nearly as prevalent in Egypt as it is in the United States, and so those who were Tweeting during the revolution had an entirely different mindset than Tweeters in America might have had: they are Tweeting out of a feeling of obligation rather than just as a pastime of sorts. This is not to say that Americans use Twitter as a pastime, but it makes sense to assume that activists' Tweets might be more "meaningful" in a place where they aren't as numerous.

I think that this article builds a strong case for teaching critical thinking and learning to see multiple sides of a given issue. Thanks to Twitter and other social media outlets, people from all over the world are becoming connected and it is so important to educate people to become global citizens, not just citizens of their home country. The Arab Spring Revolutions were talked about all over the world, on Twitter and elsewhere, which goes to show that Twitter is a powerful force when harnessed in the right way. As Hounshell discusses, Twitter is quite an "intimate space" that can have the power to truly change things when people use their voices to discuss what's going on. In terms of education, this idea gives students the chance to put themselves in a different mindset and think critically about the world through the lens of countless disciplines. The Arab Spring will be in history textbooks in the future, and it would be awesome to leave behind a legacy of global thinkers and doers that are average people, not just people on the higher rungs of society.

Digital History: AHA Perspectives

In May 2007, I was almost a Senior in high school and the American Historical Association published an edition of their journal "Perspectives" that included a series of articles on the impact that technology was having on the field of history and how people study it. The topics range from archival education to an innovative curriculum for world history. I chose to examine two of the articles to see what I could learn about the relationship between history and technology, at least as it was seen five years ago.
Here is the link to the webpage so that you can follow along if you would like: http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2007/0705/index.cfm

World History for Us All: An Innovative World History Curriculum by Ross E. Dunn
I have always considered world history one of the most interesting classes offered in most college history departments, but they are also one of the most difficult to teach. This article addresses these challenges, especially in terms of teaching students about larger concepts, such as the development of religions or the accomplishments of the Silk Road. Since 2001, a national team of history educators have been developing a program called World History for Us All, a model curriculum for world history classes in middle and high schools that aim to provide teachers with a centralized web-based resource that seeks to innovate how world history is taught. It is often taught as a boring series of events that have no apparent connection to each other. 

It is developed on the idea that people in general have a history that needs to be explored and that classroom world history suitable for the 21st century must pay attention to broad changes and international links, which are becoming more important than ever. History is not simply a series of events and dates, and it is incredibly important that students understand the complexity of ideas and events throughout the world's history. Educators should prepare students who can critically interpret history and appreciate world cultures in their past and present forms.

Note: This project is a collaboration between San Diego State University and UCLA's National Center for History in the Schools.

Strange Facts in the History Classroom: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wiki(pedia)
by Christopher Miller

Wikipedia. What words come to your mind when you read that word? Poorly written and sparsely sourced articles? Incorrect or inappropriate information? Miller doesn't see it that way; he designed an "experiment" with Wikipedia to help his students see that written history is not always one hundred percent true and is essentially created. Miller's main goal was to expose students to the idea that historical knowledge is created. Miller sums up the issues that this experiment presented best: "On one side, we had academic historians claiming that their expertise gave their interpretations weight. On the other, we had the Wikipedia advocates who claimed that the "wisdom of the crowds" would ensure the accuracy and veracity of Wikipedia's information." As a student of history, I can say that the ability to discern the best resources is a skill that is not easily obtained and takes a great deal of trial and error. In high school, I was taught that Wikipedia is not the place to go for information at any time, not just in terms of writing academic papers. I agree with Miller when he discusses the need for students to expand their methods of thinking.